Glossary of Computer Terms

Computer Terms Glossary

This page is meant to serve as a guide to the vast
quantity of computer terms and acronyms in common use for the
casual computer user. It is divided into two main sections,
the first is dedicated to the basics and
is meant more for beginners, while the second is meant instead to be used as a
reference. In reality many of the terms in the second section
are still quite common; the first section was deliberately
kept as short as possible.

Terms in the second section may be looked up by either
using the "find in page" function of your browser, or by
appending "#term" (without the quotes and where
term is the term of interest) to the "URL" or "go
to" section of your browser, keeping in mind that case
matters. The best method of searching for a term though is
to use the Search
Interface that will return not only the specific term
sought but also other entries that reference it. Be aware
that the terms referenced in the second part of this page
will freely assume familiarity with the first part.

If you want something added or see a problem with
something already here (but keep in mind this guide is not
meant to be overly technical) please send .

Reference

X-Face

X-Faces are small monochrome images embedded in headers for both
provides a e-mail and
news messages. Better
mail and news applications will display them (sometimes automatically,
sometimes only per request).

X-Windows

X-Windows provides a GUI for most
UNIX systems, but can also be
found as an add-on library for other computers. Numerous
window managersrun
on top of it. It is often just called "X".

X3D

Extensible 3D Graphics data is an XML file that is used to hold three-dimensional graphical data. It is the successor to VRML.

x86

The x86 series of processors
includes the Pentium, Pentium Pro, Pentium II, Pentium
III, Celeron, and Athlon as well as the 786, 686, 586,
486, 386, 286, 8086, 8088, etc. It is an exceptionally
popular design (by far the most popular
CISC series) in spite of the fact
that even its fastest model is significantly slower than the
assorted RISC processors. Many
different OSes run on machines built
around x86 processors, including
MS-DOS,
Windows
3.1, Windows '95,
Windows '98,
Windows ME,
Windows NT,
Windows 2000,
Windows CE,
Windows XP,
GEOS,
Linux,
Solaris,
OpenBSD,
NetBSD,
FreeBSD,
Mac OS X,
OS/2,
BeOS,
CP/M, etc. A couple
different companies produce x86 processors, but the bulk of them are produced
by Intel. It is expected that this processor will
eventually be completely replaced by the
Merced, but the Merced
development schedule is somewhat behind. Also, it should be noted that the
Pentium III processor has stirred some controversy by
including a "fingerprint" that will enable individual
computer usage of web pages etc. to be accurately tracked.

XBL

An XML Binding Language document is used to associate executable content with an XML tag. It is itself an XML file, and is used most frequently (although not exclusively) in conjunction with XUL.

XHTML

The Extensible Hypertext Mark-up Language is essentially a cleaner, stricter version of HTML. It is a proper subset of XML.

XML

The Extensible Mark-up Language is a subset of SGML and a superset of XHTML. It is used for numerous things including (among many others) RSS and RDF.

XML-RPC

XML-RPC provides a fairly lightweight means by which one computer can execute a program on a co-operating machine across a network like the Internet. It is based on XML and is used for everything from fetching stock quotes to checking weather forcasts.

XO

The energy-efficient, kid-friendly laptop
produced by the OLPC project. It runs Sugar for its window manager and Linux
for its OS. It sports numerous built-in features like wireless networking, a video camera & microphone, a few USB ports, and audio in/out jacks. It comes with several educational applications (which it refers to as "Activities"), most of which are written in Python.

XSL

The Extensible Stylesheet Language is like CSS for XML. It provides a means of describing how an XML resource should be displayed.

XSLT

XSLTransformations are used to transform one type of XML into another. It is a component of XSL that can be (and often is) used independently.

XUL

An XML User-Interface Language document is used to define a user interface for an application using XML to specify the individual controls as well as the overall layout.